SOCIOLOGISTS ANALYZE HOW ONE
CITY BUILT A NEW SPORTS VENUE

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The recent battle in Washington, D.C. about spending
public money on a new baseball stadium sounds familiar to residents in
Columbus.

Columbus voters were among the first to ever reject pleas to spend public
money on a new stadium for a professional sports team. In contrast, the
latest deal in Washington will mean construction of a stadium that will
cost up to $600 million – all or part of which will come from public
funds.

Despite the rejection of public funds in Columbus, the controversy resulted
in a “win-win” situation for all parties involved, according
to sociologists who wrote the recent book High Stakes: Big Time Sports
and Downtown Redevelopment (Ohio State University Press).

The researchers, all with ties to Ohio State University, believe the
experience of Columbus could provide lessons to other cities grappling
with how to pay for sports stadiums.

“The project worked because public and private resources were pooled
in an intelligent way. Had this been a project funded mostly funded by
taxpayer dollars, it is doubtful the ending would have been so positive.”

Curry wrote the book with Kent
Schwirian, a professor emeritus of sociology, and Rachael Woldoff,
a former Ohio State graduate student who is now an assistant professor
of sociology and anthropology at West Virginia
University.

The authors analyzed the building of Nationwide
Arena, home to the NHL franchise
Columbus Blue Jackets, and to
a lesser extent, the building of a stadium for the Columbus
Crew of Major League
Soccer. They used media reports, official documents, and in-depth
interviews with 34 of the people involved in the ballot issue to study
the public process of how the stadiums were built.

In the late 1990s, pro-development supporters pushed for an increased
sales tax in Columbus to pay for the two new venues. As supporters of
publicly financed stadiums have done in other cities, they argued that
a tax increase was needed for Columbus to win the competition among cities
for the hockey franchise, and to prevent the soccer franchise from relocating
to another city.

“Columbus can serve
as an example of how cities can get their stadiums with minimal
costs to taxpayers,” Curry said. “I’m not sure
how many cities will follow the example, but more cities should
at least consider their options.”

A strong, organized opposition fought to prevent any tax increase from
funding the stadiums. In the end, voters in 1997 turned down the tax increase
by a 56 to 44 percent vote.

Still, both the hockey and the soccer stadiums ended up being built,
mostly with private funds. Nationwide Insurance led a group that built
the hockey arena. The Hunt Sports Group built the soccer stadium.

“With what has happened in Washington and other cities, it is
hard to believe that the new arenas in Columbus did not involve vast expenditures
of public funds,” Curry said. “But in the end everyone benefited.”

Curry said Columbus had one advantage that many other cities considering
a new sports stadium don’t have. In many cases, cities are pressured
to build a new stadium for a team they already have.

Often, franchises threaten to leave a city if they don’t get the
publicly financed stadium they want. But since Columbus didn’t have
a hockey team, the public didn’t feel they would lose something
by refusing to pay for a new arena.

“Columbus was lucky that the NHL was willing to wait for the city
to find a way to finance an arena,” Curry said. “That isn’t
going to happen all the time, but the NHL wanted Columbus as a market.”

One of the arguments proponents of publicly financed stadiums often
make is that these stadiums spur urban redevelopment and end up benefiting
the city as a whole. But Curry said that argument is only partly true.

There’s no doubt that the area directly around Nationwide Arena
has benefited, Curry said. In fact, one of the reasons the private financing
worked, he noted, was the emphasis on redevelopment.

“When the public says ‘no’ to tax increases, private
sector entrepreneurs can profitably take on the construction costs of
a sports venue if a bold developer folds it into a larger neighborhood
redevelopment project,” he said.

In Columbus, the hockey venue has helped develop what is now known as
the “Arena District” and has attracted many new restaurants
and nightspots to the area. But the benefits don’t spread much further
than the immediate area.

For example, Columbus’ downtown mall, just a few miles from the
Arena District, is failing and didn’t seem to receive any boost
from the new arena.

“The theory is that people only have so many entertainment dollars
to spend,” Curry said. “Restaurants near the arena will prosper,
but those further away won’t be helped and may even decline.

“It’s not exactly a zero-sum game, but a new arena is also
not a pot of gold for the whole city that is just there for the taking.”

That’s why Curry said he is skeptical of those who believe a new
baseball stadium in Washington will be a boon to the community.

After months of controversy, D.C. officials brokered a settlement in
late December that will allow a new baseball stadium to be built. While
the numbers aren’t firm, a significant portion of the cost will
be borne by the city.

Curry is skeptical of how much value the city will get from its expenditures.

“A new stadium is not going to change life in Washington very
much. Some people will be proud of having the new team, but for most people
it won’t make any difference to their daily lives at all,”
Curry said.

“That's why you don’t want to divert hundreds of millions
of dollars of public funds that might be needed for other essential services.
For instance, the mayor of Columbus is cutting the budget for neighborhood
health clinics. One is already closed and the others are cutting back
services. How could Columbus justify spending millions for a stadium when
it can’t keep all of its health clinics open?”

Regardless of what happens in Washington, the issue of how to pay for
sports stadiums is not going to go away, Curry said. State and local expenditures
for stadiums and arenas escalated from $700 million in the mid-1970s to
more than $2 billion in the early 1990s.

And, too often, city leaders begin to value sports venues for what they
represent rather than what they cost. Leaders don’t want to lose
their sports teams, no matter what it may mean for public expenditures.

“Columbus can serve as an example of how cities can get their
stadiums with minimal costs to taxpayers,” Curry said. “I’m
not sure how many cities will follow the example, but more cities should
at least consider their options.”